Camp and Trail eBook

He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering
in the rays of the afternoon sun, of which they caught
stray peeps through the gaps in an intervening wall
of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them
to its brink. Tired and parched from their journey,
each one stooped, and quenched his thirst with a delicious,
ice-cold draught.

“Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could
give a drink to equal that?” said Cyrus, smacking
his lips with content. “But listen to the
noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were
to lie beside it for an hour, I’d think, as
the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spirits
of the world talking through it.”

“That’s a mighty queer notion,”
answered Herb; “and I never knew as other folks
had got hold of it. But, sure’s you live!
I’ve thought the same thing myself lots o’
times, when I’ve slept by a forest stream.
Who’ll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs
for our fire and bed? I want to be pretty quick
about making camp. Then we’ll be able to
try some moose-calling after supper.”

At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal’s
throat drew the eyes of his companions upon him.
His were bright and strained, peering at the opposite
bank.

“Look! What is it?” he gasped, his
low voice rattling with excitement.

“A cow-moose, by thunder!” said Herb.
“A cow-moose and a calf with her! Here’s
luck for ye, boys!”

One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal’s
gulp of astonishment, there had emerged from the thick
woods on the other bank a brown, wild-looking, hornless
creature, in size and shape resembling a big mule,
followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.

Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered
like those of a race-horse, her eyes were starting
with mingled panic and defiance.

A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun,
made the four jump. Neal, who was standing on
a slippery stone by the brink, lost his balance and
staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of
shining spray. The snort was followed by a grunt,
plaintive, distracted, which sounded oddly familiar,
seeing that it had been so well imitated on Herb’s
horn.

And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled,
making the air swish as she cut through it, followed
by her young, her mane waving like a pennon.

“Well, if that ain’t bang-up luck, I’d
like to know what is,” said the guide, as he
watched the departure. “I never s’posed
you’d get a chance to see a cow-moose; she’s
shyer’n shy. Say! don’t you boys think
that I’ve done her grunt pretty well sometimes?”

“That you have,” was the general response.
“We couldn’t tell any difference
between your noise and the real thing.”

“But she wasn’t a patch on the bull-moose
in appearance,” lamented Dol.

“No more she was, boy. Most female forest
creatures ain’t so good-looking as the males!
And that’s queer when you think of it, for the
girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned.
We ain’t in it with ’em, so to speak.”